Windows 2000 after a facelift. The Professional variant is a decent, robust OS with very few nagging points (provided that you disable all of the extraneous garbage and useless services). The Home Edition variant, however, is crippleware aimed solely at the computer illiterate soccor mom who couldn't tell a mouse from her studded leather dildo; contrary to popular belief, it is crash-prone and becomes very unstable when running more than 2 applications at once. It's "Luna" theme, by the way, is a laughable ripoff of Apple's "Aqua" design theme that is nowhere near being as elegant and intuitive.

I don't like Macs very much, but I'd take OSX's svelt brushed metal and blue orb design over Windows XP's clunky blue-and-red coloring book design ANY day.

Windows XP Professional - A worthy successor of Windows 2000
Windows XP Home Edition - Dumbed-down bullshit OS that puts the Win2K kernel to shame. Is only marginally more stable than Windows ME, and just as worthless.

Fairly decent OS from Microsoft. More stable than most Windows versions, but has a number of privacy and end-user-rights issues that are questionable at best. Like all Windows builds, is often blindly flamed by idiots with no clue what an OS is or how it works, thinking MS sucks but not having any ideas how they would do it better.

Its Fisher-Price looking graphics do however fit in well, considering MS's tech support usually treats you like a toddler.

1) Although some would say it is the best OS that MS has made, some would argue that Win 2k is better. I say it is preference. I use WinXP on my computer and it runs near flawlessly. Compatibility (along with other problems) is only a problem encountered by those who can't figure out how to use a search engine to find a solution, so they come here to rant about it. Simple to use, if you follow directions and maybe read the manual, it hardly crashes and always tries to save your system by crashing the violating program. Although the "report error" window is useless, it is better than having to reboot. When you use the system manager (aka ctrl-alt-delete) you can use the "processes" tab to instantly shut down a program without any wait or consequence (in my experience). System important processes are clearly marked "system" so that you cannot accidentally crash windows (unless you are an idiot). 2) An OS made by a company that people like to belittle because they suck at using a user-friendly OS. 3) Not as advanced as Linux, which means it's easier to use, yet not as flexible.

1) Windows XP is a fine OS, thanks for a decent on with this time, Microsoft!
2)d00d, XP sux! ROFL BOFL!
3)guy1: "Hmm, which OS should i use?"
guy2: "Do you know how to use Linux?"
guy1: "No..."
guy2: "Use Windows XP"

A seriously stable operating system. The only reason it would crash, is if you dont know how to properly install new hardware, you built a computer yourself, but you mixed incompatible parts, or you have shitloads viruses and spyware, or because you were a jackass and messed with a program in a way it shouldnt be messed with.
Thankfully, you can turn off error reporting.

The average user: I have windows XP. Yes. Good.

Mac user: cool.

Linux user: Yeah..i'm hungry.

Linux fanboy: Wtf!! y would use dat piece of sh1t! j00 are a st00p1d N00b. It crfrashedc in like...2 minutes.

Windows XP is like any other Microsoft program. You get to share your opnion on how things should work and get to send a report every time things go bad.
and they gather all that info, put it on a harddisk several terrabytes big, and do nothing with it. they just keep creating trash sofware so you can keep sharing your opnion. they like that, that way the coders get the attention they don't get at home.

A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a chocolate cake without mustard.

Since the advent of that abominable Vista, Windows XP has officially become not only the best operating system Microsoft has ever released, but one of the best operating systems EVER released.

All my computers run Windows XP. The new laptop I bought came preset with Vista so I did a clean install of Windows XP only to discover that none of the hardware was compatible. I later woke up in the hospital after having suffered a myocardial infarction due to being extremely pissed off.

Shame on you Microsoft. You've disappointed us all with your fucking Vista.